


When It Rains, It Pours

by RandomWordsAndStormyDays



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Betrayal, Character death is not in reference to deacon or the sole survivor, Double Agents, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:33:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomWordsAndStormyDays/pseuds/RandomWordsAndStormyDays
Summary: The Railroad is gone, taken out by the Brotherhood, but by some miracle Deacon isn't there when the attack begins. Instead, he stumbles upon the massacre as the sole survivor in his own accord. He knows there's only one person who could have done this, the only person who's body isn't in HQ when he looks.He boards the Prydwin looking for his partner, his friend, determined to at least find out why she betrayed them before she inevitably tries to kill him. Deacon's not expecting what happens when he finally gets the chance to talk to her.
Relationships: Deacon/Female Sole Survivor, Deacon/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 77





	When It Rains, It Pours

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely based off this prompt from the Fallout Kink Meme: “Brotherhood attempts to take out the Railroad without the sosu’s knowledge. Thanks to Deacon and a few of the sosu’s safe measures, the named people manage to get out, and end up in Sanctuary. Deacon hunts down sosu, thinking he was in on it, and manages to infiltrate the BOS just as Elder Macon haughtily informs sosu of what mason believes is the railroad’s destruction. Sosu freaks the fuck out, and Deacon watches in stunned disbelief as sosu systematically murders every single member of the brotherhood, except for the children...”.
> 
> I changed a decent amount, namely the number of survivors, the gender of the SS, and the reaction of the SS to the news, but this was my inspiration and it would be wrong of me to not reference it.
> 
> The character death is in reference to the Railroad members, and not Deacon or the Sole Survivor.
> 
> \- - -
> 
> A huge thanks to Valkyriejack (tumblr and ao3), who did beta work for this and kept me writing. Thank you <3 and y’all should check out their works on here!

There aren’t a lot of places to hide on the Prydwen. There’s enemy Soldiers around every turn and the ovular shape means there’s not as many corners for someone to duck into. Which means Deacon is more exposed than he wants to be. Normally, that wouldn’t bother him, because on the ground there’s always half a dozen escape routes. Not here. Here he has exactly one way down. And even with his ability to blend into any room like he’s meant to be there, or disappear into the background like a chameleon, having nowhere to run or hide leaves him feeling vulnerable and exposed. On a normal mission he’d have fallen back, waited for his target to move somewhere better. But this isn’t a normal mission, it’s his last one. He won’t make it off this airship alive, not once he does what he’s going to do. He won’t survive his encounter with Charmer.

She didn’t let anyone else live, so why would he be the exception?

Flashes of the Railroad’s decimation assault him as he waits for her arrival. Drummer Boy, Tinker Tom, Desdemona, their bodies had at least been identifiable under all the blood and viscera. The other agents in HQ were less lucky- a laser to the face, a grenade to the chest, a dozen different injuries that left their faces mutilated and their clothes destroyed. Glory’s body had been the most pristine, either she was lucky or unlucky enough to have been killed away from the central room, spared from the violence that tainted the walls there.

Guilt tears at him. Survivor’s guilt. He was supposed to have been there during the attack, but something had told him to take the long way back - call it paranoia, call it intuition, call it the universe kicking him one more time. Leaving him alive while the rest of his friends, the people he would tentatively call his family, rot in an underground tomb. It doesn’t matter, all he knows is that when he finally slinked his way into the catacombs the fighting was already over, and everyone was dead.

He wonders if Charmer was there for the assault, or if her betrayal only went so far as to pass along all their secrets. To hand her friends to the enemy on a silver platter. Either way her hands aren’t clean, their deaths are on them, their blood, and he’s here to confront her, even though he knows that she’ll likely kill him- or have her brothers and sisters in arms do it for her.

The worst part about it all? He trusted her. Deacon failed to follow his own advice. ‘You can’t trust everyone’, he had told her, ‘surely there’s someone you trust’ she had responded. At the time he could have honestly said no, there wasn’t a single person he knew who he could trust with his knowledge of the Railroad, with his tradecraft secrets, with the ghost of his past.

But as time went on his answer changed, and although she never asked him again, he could see it in her face that she understood. Charmer understood how much trust and faith he had in her when he spilled his soul about his mistakes as a young adult, and never once did she use it against him. She never joked, never pressed for more information than he was willing to part with, never judged him for the terrible things he did.

Some days, when they were forced to share one sleeping bag between the two of them, he imagined that their relationship was more. That he was allowed to touch, allowed to duck his head forward and breathe in her scent, that he was allowed to want. He never pressed for anything, willing to live with the fantasy in his own head. She had him wrapped around her finger, and the day she took off on her own solo undercover operation left him feeling equal parts proud and lonely.

But then she used that trust, that companionship, against them, leaving his fantasies as nothing more than a bitter reminder that she betrayed them, betrayed him. She had to of known that he would never have pegged her for a traitor, would never have guessed that everytime she went undercover with the Brotherhood that she was feeding them information and secrets. He never would have guessed that she’d leave them all to die. That wasn’t her. Or so he thought.

Now though? After seeing what Charmer is capable of, he wonders how he missed it. No one could send a group of people to their deaths without some form of hatred, not unless they were devoid of all empathy. And neither of those things described her. Her eyes betrayed no hatred, no malice, and as for empathy? He could still vividly recall when she had learned that he had cooked squirrel for their dinner, she cried and couldn’t even eat them, settling for 200 year old cram instead. Those tears weren’t fake, and yet, if they weren’t, why was he standing here now, seeking answers and revenge on someone who only a few hours ago, he would have called his best friend, his partner?

There was no hint that she would betray them, no clue that the Brotherhood has succeeded in swaying her allegiances to their side. The last time they spoke she seemed like the Charmer he knew, with her bright smile and easy going attitude. There was no reason to suspect that she was going to be the reason that the Railroad would be no more. When he last saw her, she was still their savior.

There’s a loud screeching sound, metal on metal, from just outside the entrance to the Prydwen - a vertibird docking - and somehow he knows it’s her, steels his heart for when she enters. Still, when she walks through the door, he finds himself staring. Covered in road dirt and blood, Charmer enters like she’s the Elder, confident, in charge, clearly at home in her own skin. Before he would have been proud, seeing her slip into a disguise, wear their uniform like she was one of them. Except that isn’t right, she’s not pretending right now. She was pretending when she was with the Railroad, she was pretending when she was with him.

And now, looking at her makes him feel sick. Seeing her standing tall, smiling with the other Brotherhood Soldier, wearing their colors, he sees no regret in her face, doesn’t hear it in her voice. The flight suit he stole feels itchy, too tight across his skin. He worries for a split second that she might see him as she passes to enter the Elder’s chambers, but her eyes pass over where he’s hiding, and she shows no hint at having seen him.

It’s a small relief, at least she won’t kill him before he can ask her why she betrayed them.

He follows her with his eyes as she walks past the ladder into the belly of the Brotherhood’s main base of operations and straight into the circular room where Maxon spends most of his time. She pauses in the center of the room, waiting for the Elder to turn from his windows and address her. When he turns around, he's smiling, and it’s sickening to see the man responsible for so much death and destruction look happy.

“Welcome home, Paladin Smith. I trust your trip up went well.”

“Nothing to report, Sir.” Charmer’s voice is professional, maybe a little relaxed. Deacon thinks he might hurl, does she have no regret? No remorse for what she's done?

“Good, moving on then I have some news that I think you’ll be delighted to hear,” he walks away from his windows, stops as soon as he’s directly in front of her. “We’ve eliminated the Railroad as a threat, Soldier. Thanks to your assistance.”

He fucking knew it. God, it’s his fault. He brought her into the fold, vouched for her, let her go undercover with the Brotherhood as her first solo field operation. Let her blind him with her goddamn  _ charm _ . Let his stupid crush get in the way of doing his job. He’s the reason they’re all dead.

He waits for the celebration, the toast to their success, to the Railroad’s defeat. But instead of enjoying the praise, Charmer does something that surprises him. Her hands falter from their rigid position of attention. She takes a step back and balks at the Elder.

“What?”

That’s… genuine confusion. Confusion and, based off of the way her shoulders tighten, disbelief. A reaction he would expect from a person left in the dark, someone who had no idea of what was supposed to occur.

Maxon doesn’t appear to be concerned by her actions, simply smiles. “With you doing so well out in the Commonwealth, my Scribes had more time to study that nuisance in greater detail. They managed to find their headquarter’s location a few days ago.”

He walks forward, placing his hands on Charmer’s shoulders, clearly oblivious to the fact that she’s not accepting his words as something good. It makes hope burst in his chest - it seems as if she didn’t know. That it’s possible she wasn’t a source of betrayal. He squashes it down.

“I had the intention of waiting for you to return from your mission, letting you lead the charge, but you raidioed and said you’d be late, and this wasn’t something I thought we should sit on.” Even from his position behind her he sees the color drain from Charmer’s face.

“They’re…” She trails off, like she can’t even say the word.

“Dead, Paladin, the Railroad is gone. And soon they will be nothing more than a memory.” Maxon smiles at her again, drops his hands, and then turns back towards his wall of windows. “You have my thanks, Soldier, none of this could have been done without you.”

Charmer is shaking now, a subtle vibration of her hands and shoulders. It makes him rethink his conclusion. It’s clear that this is all new to Charmer, information that she hadn’t planned on receiving today, or ever. Maxon continues to talk about her contributions, how their focus can now be focused on the Institute and “cleansing the Commonwealth”. It’s apparent, to him at least, that the Paladin is not listening.

When Maxon finishes talking he turns to look at her. “Is there anything you need to report from your mission?”

Charmer shakes her head, then seems to remember that she has to be vocal. “No, Elder.” Her words are clipped, tinted with anger, with pain, but the Brotherhood leader is too wound up in his victory to notice.

“Good, then you’re dismissed.”

Stiffly, like she doesn’t want to, Charmer lifts her arm in the Brotherhood salute. “Ad Victoriam.” Barely waiting for a reply, she turns on her heel and leaves the meeting room. Deacon ensures that no one sees him follow her down the ladder and into the sleeping chambers reserved for Paladins and higher.

He lingers in the shadows, following far enough behind that there’s no way she would be able to see him. After she enters her room, he waits. Eventually, the halls clear enough that he feels he can risk it, and anticipation tingles under his skin as he walks. This is it, he’s either right, and she’s his ally, or he’s wrong and when that door opens he’s dead. There’s no turning back now, he’s determined to find out the truth, and he pauses when he reaches her door, listening for any sounds he can make out through the solid metal.

Through the door he can hear her choked off sobs, and that’s the final clue that Charmer didn’t betray the Railroad, that their demise was purely coincidental.

His heart shatters for her. To find out that her friends, her allies, were murdered, is one thing. To hear it come from the man who ordered the attack himself, phrased in a way that paints her as the reason it was possible, is another thing entirely.

Deacon’s never been one to comfort people, too close, too personal for his tastes. But he wants to hold her, let her lean on him, cry on his shoulder. It’s not what would normally happen, she knows his aversion to personal contact, but he’s the only one left. The only person she could cry on that wouldn’t turn around and tell Maxon that she was a double agent. And he’s positive that seeing at least one person left alive, him or not, will help Charmer right now.

So he knocks, three quick raps of his knuckles against the metal door.

It takes her a few seconds to answer, and when she does her voice is cold. “Unless you’re here with a message from Elder Maxon, I don’t intend to speak with you.”

Her sentence is spoken in the oddly formal way that most Brotherhood Soldier’s speak, and it’s so unfamiliar that the joke he had prepared dies on his tongue. Instead, he’s quiet when he replies with, “do you have a Geiger counter?”

The door rips open and Deacon comes face to face with the woman he intended to try and kill not ten minutes ago. Her face is streaked with tears, eyes red-rimmed and guarded like she’s ready to fight whoever has the audacity to ask her that while she’s grieving, but when she sees him her face crumples and she says his name, broken and unsure. It sounds like a prayer.

“C’mon Charmer, let me in. This isn’t a conversation to be had here in the hallway.”

She doesn’t move, frozen as she rakes her eyes over him. “Maxon said that…” she trails off, then shakes her head, dispelling the ice keeping her in place. Charmer steps to the side and he enters her room, shutting the door behind him.

The air inside feels stiff, both of them wary of the other. He doesn’t believe she sold them out, but that doesn’t mean the same level of trust exists between them. Charmer appears to be just as cautious about him, unsure of how he’s alive despite assurances from Maxon that there weren’t any survivors.

But then she opens her mouth to speak, ask a question or maybe something else, and her voice catches. Her lower lip trembles, the muscles in her cheek jump, and then the rest of her face crumples. Without thinking he takes a step towards her, arms open, and she collapses into him. Tears drip onto his shoulder, hot and quick, and his hands raise to hold her close without approval from his brain.

Her breath shudders against his collarbone, her attempt to regain control of her emotions, and the heat presses through his stolen uniform causing him to suppress a shudder. Deacon doesn’t move as she cries, just keeps a steady pressure against her back until her breathing slows.

When the tears stop she doesn’t pull back, instead choosing to tilt her head towards his neck, and then she speaks, her words tickling his skin. “Is it true?” He nods in the affirmative and she sniffs in response. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”

Deacon pushes her back, even as his body screams to hold her closes, hands holding her shoulders, already shaking his head. “No, Charmer, Maxon is full of shit. This isn’t your fault.” He can see it in her eyes that she’s not convinced, but she nods anyways. He squeezes lightly and draws her full attention. “I’m fucking serious, partner, the blame is not on you”.

_ It’s on me _ , he thinks,  _ I got sloppy _ . That stays inside his own head, tangling up with the other self-hatred he’s already got stacked a mile high.

There’s something he can’t quite read on her face when he pulls out of his own thoughts, and then she’s lifting her arm to drag her fingers down his arm and across his chest. He can’t suppress the shudder that racks through him this time, but she doesn’t appear to notice. “When I opened the door, I thought that maybe you were a hallucination.” Her nails scrap against his shoulder as she traces the assortment of zippers and ties on the flight suit he’s wearing. “But you feel real.”

It’s hard to focus on anything except for the drag of her hand across his skin, but he manages. He stops her before she can do much more than trace over his arms and the tops of his shoulders. Gently, so as not to upset her, he grips her wrist and rubs small circles onto her pulse point.

“I’m real, Charmer. I’m alive.”

“Tell me something only the real Deacon would know.”

Being a replacement isn’t something he thought she might suspect him of being, but if that confirmation will snap her out of whatever weird headspace she’s managed to trap herself in, then he’ll tell her everything he can think of to get her back to the woman he fell in lov- _ fuck _ .

The panic he feels at his half formed thought stays off of his face, and he drops her hand, puts a little distance between them as he walks past her and sits in the chair she has across the room. He needs to put his walls back up, but it’s been a rollercoaster of a day. Everyone he was responsible for keeping safe, is now dead. He thought that his partner, the one person he had grown to trust, had betrayed him, and now he finds out that she didn’t, and she thinks that maybe he’s a replacement - or a figment of her imagination.

“You attempted to lie to me once, I think just to see if you could, or to see if I’d notice.” She had followed him across the room, but had sat on the bed instead of standing next to him. Now she watches him with a hawk like intensity, ready to defend herself if he can’t prove that he’s real. “You tried to convince me that your middle name was Jade,” a hint of a smile tugs at his lips as he recalls that day, “but you stumbled, flushed red, couldn’t maintain eye contact. It’s how I knew you weren’t being honest.”

“You knew I was lying?” Charmer seems shocked by this, most of her friends really think that her name is Nora Jade Smith, he might be the only one who knows the truth, other than Charmer herself. The tension drains out of her when he nods his head, but then it’s back before it can fully disappear. Her eyes narrow, studying him. “The Institute would have my real name. So would the vault. Tell me something else.”

Deacon racks his brain, trying to settle on one of the hundreds of things he knows about her. Something obscure enough to get missed during a memory implant, but also something significant enough that she remembers it, too. The memory he settles on makes him feel a little sick, a little shaky, but it’s a good one. The only thing he knows for a fact that only he would know.

“A few weeks before you went undercover with the Brotherhood I told you about,” he clears his throat against the building emotions, “I told you about the Deathclaws… about Barbara.” His voice doesn’t crack when he says her name, and that surprises him, but he presses on. “You told me that I was forgiven, that I was still your friend.”

Charmer’s eyes flash bright. “Fuck it’s really you.” And then she’s off the bed, standing, relief reflected in her face. He goes to say something, work out their next move maybe, but before his mouth can even part she’s moving towards him.

Three quick, large steps and she’s right in front of him. There isn’t any time at all for him to react to her closeness before she reaches down, grabs the flight suit by the collar, and yanks him up into a searing kiss.

It’s not often that Deacon’s brain can’t catch up to the changing circumstances around him, or that he’s rendered speechless, but as soon as her lips crash into his own, everything stops. His brain isn’t supplying facts, or lies, it’s not trying to analyze or understand. It simply stops, for the first time in years he’s not focused on anything at all except the current moment in time. On anything except Charmer.

The taste of her, grime from her recent mission mixed with something sweet.

The feel of her pressed against him from knee chest.

The sound she makes when he returns the kiss, half surprise and half aroused.

The images of his comrades, dead and bloodied on the floor, slip out of his conscious thought. For a moment, a perfect moment, he doesn’t see their faces, their eyes wide in disbelief, in pain, in betrayal. He doesn’t hear their voices berating him, accusing him, tearing him down from the outside in. It all fades away until all he can think about is the gentle press of Charmer’s lips against his own, the wetness of her tongue as it flicks against his mouth, the sharp feel of her teeth as they bite down, grounding him in the present.

It’s intoxicating, completely enveloping. He wants more. She makes another sound of approval when his hand lifts to grip at the back of her neck, tilting her head to allow him better access. And he wants nothing more than that noise played on a loop until the day he dies.

When they finally part he feels dazed, still not fully comprehending what just happened. Charmer hasn’t moved back, and she’s smiling, teeth a bright white against the dirt and blood streaked on her face, and the sight of her has him smiling too. She’s alive, alive and not his enemy. His heart is pounding, adrenaline from the most recent development in their relationship, coursing through his blood stream.

He lets himself have this, leaning down once more to kiss her, feeling like a teenager again when she tugs him backwards, forcing him to follow her if he wants to keep touching. Her knees hit the back of the bed and she drops, pulling him with her onto the standard issue sheets. He groans when the bouncing has her digging her nails into the back of his neck.

Deacon follows her down as soon as he can, breaking their kiss so he can push her backwards, moving so she’s no longer sideways. Charmer leans forward to pull at her boot strings, and he gets the message, shucking off his own before climbing onto the bed. He’s barely settled into the bed before she’s grabbing at his uniform, tugging on ties and pulling on zippers.

Their movements are frantic, both of them struggling with the skin tight suit, failing at succeeding because of the rush, the urgency present in every move.

Finally, Deacon’s arms are freed from their confines and he surges back towards Charmer, effectively pushing her onto her back so he can claim her lips once more. Her fingers twist in the cotton of his undershirt, stretching the material, leaving it permanently deformed when her fingers leave it in exchange for digging into his shoulders.

With deft fingers, and a little less frantic impatience, Deacon gets the main zipper of her uniform down, exposing flesh that’s mostly untouched by radiation, weather, and the harsh life that most of the Commonwealth’s residence experience in buckets. Her skin is warm under his hands when he slides under the orange of her suit, and off-white of her tank top and feels the press of her ribs as he tightens. She whines when he drops his mouth down to her neck, whimpers when he bites- hard enough to feel, but gentle enough not to draw blood.

Her hand presses on his arm, pushing back, and he goes without fighting. For a second he worries that he pushed too far, tried to take what wasn’t being offered, but Charmer doesn’t even speak before she’s shucking off the long sleeves, reaching down, arms crossed over each other, and then she’s pulling her tank top off, leaving her in nothing but her bra from the waist up.

Something short circuits in Deacon’s mind for half a second. It’s not like he’s never seen her like this before, shirtless. But this is the first time it’s been done without the immediate need for medical attention. The first time he’s actually been allowed to look for more than a second between changing clothes. His eyes rake over exposed flesh, taking her in. From the dip of her collarbone, to the slope of her breasts, to the curve of her hip, it’s more than he ever thought he’d get. More than he deserves.

Charmer says his name, pulling him from his staring. It’s said like a question, and she looks… insecure, like maybe he’s not completely enraptured by her. That won’t fucking do.

“Fuck, Charmer, you’re gorgeous.” He watches her flush, follows the red across her cheeks, down her neck, until it spills down to her chest, and then he’s surging forward. A hand goes into her hair, tangling in it to drag her face back up to his, and the other slips under the bottom of her bra, teasing over the skin there. A soft hitch of her breath has him straining against the bottom portion of his flight suit, hips stuttering forward for a second before he regains control.

Deacon kisses her like he’ll never get to do it again, because for all he knows, once this is over he might not be able to. Might never be able to feel her whimper against his lips, or shudder in pleasure under his fingers.

A quick flick of his finger against her nipple has her groaning, biting down sharply on his bottom lip. Then her hands are tugging at his shirt and she whispers, “off, off, off.” And he can’t deny her, won’t deny her a fucking thing, not in this moment, maybe not ever. In the few seconds it takes for him to pull his shirt over his head, Charmer drops her bra, so that when the undershirt gets thrown aside, landing somewhere on the floor without a sound, he’s greeted by the sight of her bare breasts, nipples tightened into peaks, and the flush of arousal against her skin.

When his eyes finally manage to look up to her face, he realized that she’s staring at him too. He hopes he doesn’t disappoint.

“Take them off.” He knows she means his sunglasses, and he knows it’s not a request, it’s a demand, but he thinks he could argue. Could fight. But the fight in him is gone, and if she’s going to let him have her, going to be vulnerable and exposed, he should at least even the playing field.

So the glasses come off, they get tossed behind him somewhere on the bed, and then he’s looking at her. He’s expecting surprise, maybe even disgust, but he doesn’t get either of those. Instead, lust rises up in her eyes, expanding her pupils out. It has him blindsided for a second, unsure what to do in the face of such open want. When was the last time someone looked at him like that? No hidden motive or plan, just simple and pure attraction? It’s been a long time.

He doesn’t move until her hand reaches up, curls around his arm and tugs him forward. He follows her lead, climbing up the bed until he’s looming over her, one thigh between hers. And then he ducks down, mouth leaving a trail of nips and bites and kisses on her neck and chest, something he couldn’t do earlier with his shades in the way, until he finds his way down, down, down, taking one nipple into her mouth, and letting his hand gently twist at the other.

He talks as he goes, unable to help himself, it’s not in his nature to be silent. So he whispers praises into her skin as he goes, tells her how fucking beautiful she is, how badly he’s wanted to kiss her, to touch her, to taste her.

She responds with praises of her own, muttering out how he feels against her, how much he’s winding her up, how much she’s thought about his mouth and hands on her for the longest time. Her confession has him reeling, the confirmation that she’s thought about this too, that she’s wanted him maybe just as long as he wanted her.

It spurs him on. Charmer’s hand flies up to cradle his neck as he strokes and teasing, keeping him pressed to her as he flicks at the bud of her breast with his tongue, laving over it until she’s squirming under his touch, legs clenching around the top of his leg, grinding hard enough for him to feel the heat of her even through his clothing. She’s breathless, unable to form words.

Without her voice to distract him, the arousal that had been pooling and kept at bay comes rising up to the surface. It has his hips stuttering as he grinds back, his own arousal hard, begging to be freed. But his relief is secondary here, his pleasure and release pushed aside in favor of watching Charmer fall apart beneath him. His hand not currently occupied slides down her side, nails digging in just enough to leave red marks on her flesh as he descends.

Deacon lifts his body just enough to fit his hand between their bodies, fingers coming to rest just above the apex of her thighs. “Wanna touch you, Charms, please.” He begs it into her skin, face heating at the desperation he can hear in his own voice. His fingers rest there, not moving, waiting. He needs the permission, craves it.

She’s nodding her head before the sentence is done, whimpering out a series of yes’s before wiggling her hips to push the Brotherhood suit down her legs. Deacon helps, maneuvering just so so that he doesn’t have to stop teasing her, drawing out her arousal with his hands and mouth. In just a few seconds the uniform is gone, leaving Charmer in just her underwear. He doesn’t remove it, simply slides his fingers under the fabric enough to get them inside.

He groans against her breast as soon as he feels how wet she is, practically soaking her underwear, and how hot she is, heated up enough that he has to steady himself when the image of her wrapped around his cock has him seeing white. Two fingers slide in without any resistance and Charmer moans, loud and unbridled.

Deacon would normally feel panic at the possibility of being heard, of being caught, but he can’t really think of anything but the pulse of her around his fingers as he pushes her close to the edge. A third finger follows soon after, and he brings his thumb around to rub at her clit, leaning up to swallow the sounds his ministrations force out of Charmer, taking her pleasure and spinning it around in his head until she’s the only thing there. The only thing he’s able to focus on.

When she comes she bites down onto his shoulder, digging in her teeth and letting out a whimper that has him groaning in response. He talks her through it. “Fuck yeah, baby, that’s right. Made you feel good, didn’t I?” She pulses around his fingers, still riding the aftershocks of her release. “Gonna keep making you feel good,” he punctuated his words with light fluttering of his fingers and another press of the thumb to the sensitive button of nerves above her sex.

She jerks away from the curve of his shoulder and pulls her hips back, oversensitive but satiated. “Fuck, Dee.” He pulls his fingers out, wiping her slick on the bedsheets and moving back up to kiss her. “You’re good at that.”

Pride slams into him, and he smirks, “better with my mouth.”

She shuts her eyes and shudders out a breath as his words send a wave of pleasure down her body. He watched her throat as she swallows, follows her tongue with his eyes when she licks her lips, feels winded when she looks at him, pleasure and lust and maybe a little bit of more than just friendship in her eyes. “Next time.” And it’s not phrased like a question, nor a demand. It sounds like a promise.

By the time he thinks of a response she reaches up to tease her fingers across the length of his cock, bringing his urgent need for release back to the front of his mind. “I can think of something better to do right now.”

“Fuck yes, Charmer please.” Please, he’s actually begging now. Vulnerability slaps him in the face, but before it can consume him she’s barking out orders.

“Take off the stupid fucking flight suit.”

He lets himself fall into her demand. Lets it silence the insecurities that flash like neon signs in his brain, lets her words take the electricity out of them until they’re dark, faded into the background of his mind.

He’s pretty sure there’s a proper way to take of the fucking Brotherhood uniform, but he doesn’t know it, so instead he pulls at the fabric, rips a zipper, but finally manages to get everything off. He’s not wearing underwear, there’s no space under the confines of the skintight suit, and when he finally looks back at Charmer she’s fully nude, too, and he stops caring about whether or not she likes what she sees. If she didn’t, she'd say something.

Still, he flushes red as her eyes take over his chest, following the planes down to his hips, landing on his cock, currently bouncing obscenely as he takes the few quick steps back to the bed. He doesn’t like to be on display, but if that’s the price he has to pay here, he’ll nail himself to the wall for her to do nothing but stare at. As long as he gets to touch her in the end.

He speaks to cover the nerves, climbs up on top of her and gently lays her back. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Charms. You know that?” Her cheeks darken at his words. “I’d spent all day looking at you if you’d let me.” Shivers run through her as he runs a finger down her neck, across her collarbone. He’s rewarded with a gasp and a shudder when he twists a nipple, pulling at it gently and rolling it softly.

“Deac-” he cuts her off, dropping to taste his own name as it spills from her mouth. As soon as he pulls back she tries again, sounding breathless and desperate, and it’s music to his ears. “Please, Deacon.”

The words are pulled from him before they can be stopped. “Like I could deny you anything.”

Something flashes in her eyes, but he’s embarrassed by his accidental confession, so he avoids her until he’s got no choice, until he’s lined up with her opening, but not touching her, arms already straining from holding himself up, hips eager to push forward, to finally be inside. But he needs permission first, still craves her admittance that she wants this, so he has to look at her, has to acknowledge what he’s just said.

She’s looking up at him, pupils blown wide, nearly engulfing the brown he’s used to seeing, chest heaving from anticipation, excitement, arousal, hair tangled and thrown across the pillow, looking more like an angel than a secret agent, and it’s all he’s wanted for weeks,  _ months _ . For her to look at him like he knows he looks at her, for her to want him like he craves her. For her to let him take, let him have, let him  _ feel _ . It doesn’t sound like his confession has ruined anything.

But there’s hesitation inside him, still. A part of him that’s screaming that she doesn’t really want this. That her initial kiss was pure relief, just her confirming that he really was real, and that everything else is her playing along, not wanting to hurt his feelings or something else equally fucked up. That part of him is loud enough to break through the lust and need swirling through his body. Strong enough to have him pausing, waiting, for something from her that tells him this is real, that he’s not experiencing some weird, fucked up dream.

She must see something in his face, he’s too exposed, too open, too honest, without his sunglasses, and something must stick out to her, because her hand slides off of his bicep, across his chest, down his stomach, until her hand comes to rest of his hips. Her nails dig in, once more grounding him with the small bite of pain, and then she tugs, lightly enough that he could fight it if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to, and he lets her guide him forward, until the tip of cock is pressed against her wet heat, sliding between her folds, slippery and hot.

“Deacon, please.”

It might be his name, or the plea, maybe the whine that her words came out on, maybe a combination of all of it. Whatever it is, it’s all he needs, that last bit of confirmation, that encouragement for him to believe. He looks at her face, still covered in faded blood and road dirt, looking more beautiful than any pinup he’s ever seen, and he knows he gone. Fallen for this woman, powerful and kind and well on her way to squeezing all his broken pieces into something that resembles a human instead of a ghost.

With a shuddering breath he pushes forward, sinking into her, and draws a moan from both of them as he bottoms out. His head drops down to the junction between her shoulder and neck, and he stays there trying to remember how to breathe, how to think anything except  _ tight and wet and hot _ , but then Charmer shifts her hips, fucking back into his cock and he growls, actually fucking growls, something animalistic and needy. And she shudders, clenching down on him, tightening her grip on his hip and he just knows he’s going to have five finger shaped bruises, and he doesn’t care.

“Fuck, Charmer, you feel so good.” She says something that he doesn’t quite hear, muffled by his own shoulder and he pulls back just enough to hear it.

“Quinn, fuck, Dee, my name is Quinn.”

It rushes through him, the feeling of knowing that he might be one of the only people in the whole fucking world to know her real name. The knowledge fills him up, brings out something possessive, it has him coming into his sense enough to realize that he still hasn’t actually moved, and she’s twitching against him, hips winding in slow circles.

“Quinn.” He breathes the name against the shell of her neck as he pulls back, relishes both the slow drag of her cunt around his cock and the needy whine that rips out of her as she hears him say her name. He repeats it, letting it swirl inside his head as he sets a steady pace, swallowing up her sounds with his mouth as he fucks into her. She shudders when he tilts forward, changing the angle and speed of his thrusts.

“Quinn.” Saying it solidifies it in his mind, tearing at him and soothing something inside of him that he didn’t know was missing. It’s not just her name, they both know it. It’s trust he doesn’t deserve, a secret he alone gets to keep. Not one he stole through his work, one he’s not entitled to know. No, it’s one she’s entrusting him with, has offered up to him. Making her more vulnerable in this moment then being naked under him.

“Fuck-Quinn.” He’s not gonna fucking last. It’s all too much, her trust, her understanding, the lust and - shit - the love he knows she’s feeling towards him. It’s all too much, sending him careening off the side of a cliff with no way, no time, no chance for him to hit the brakes.

One more confession scratches at the back of his skull, a fact that he himself had tried so hard to forget. The confession has laid dormant in the furthest reaches of his mind, sealed away under a dozen locks, who’s keys he conveniently lost. Somehow, her name provides it with lockpicks, a way to escape.

With every thrust, every repetition of her name, every gasp that escapes from her as he moves, every bite of her nail against his back, his hip, gives it another helping hand. Until it slams against his skull, forcing its way down down his neck, into his mouth, across his tongue until he’s saying it into her neck.

“Samuel.”

Quinn’s head goes to turn, to look at him, but he pushes his face down to her ear, not ready. Not sure he’ll ever be, even as he repeats it. “My real name is Samuel.”

She repeats it. Once, releases it on a breathless whimper, and it’s the last push he needs. With self-restraint he didn’t think he still possessed, he pulls out of her, spilling across her stomach in three thick stripes.

Arms shaking from exertion, breath coming out in hard pants, and still twitching from his orgasm, Deacon feels calm. More so than he thought he would, but he can’t seem to find the strength to look at her. Instead he leans his forehead against hers, sweaty and gross, but perfect, and lets her draw him in for another kiss. Languid and lazy, not a kiss leading to anything, just full of emotion. He hopes she can feel in his touch, his embrace, all the things he’s too cowardly to say.

Gentle hands lead him sideways until he’s lying next to her, still consumed in her kiss, until finally she pulls away. As soon as she’s gone cold sweeps across him. A cold that feels like rejection. Is it over? Was this just a quick fuck, where they both spill untold secrets in the heat of the moment and then pretend like nothing happened.

It’s what he usually does, minus the secrets, but he’s panicking at the thought that this doesn’t mean to her what it means to him. He watches her clean herself off with her discarded tank top and feels like he needs to run. Bolt before she can look at him and say “that was fun, but that’s all it was”.

Deacon is calculating the distance between him and his clothes, and his clothes and the door, when she turns back to him. Eyes bright and a hesitant smile on her face. The pounding in his chest is growing concerning, is he having a heart attack? He’s not as young as he used to be, but he thought that he was healthy enough to not have to worry. Quinn doesn’t seem to notice his growing anxiety, because she crawls back onto the bed tugging him into a quick and chaste kiss, before resting her hands on his shoulders and pushing him back so he has to look at her.

“I love you.”

Yeah, he’s having a heart attack. Maybe a stroke. Did she fuck him so hard he went into a coma?

“What?”

She laughs, and he can’t find it in himself to be offended. “I love you,” she grows serious then, and he’s suddenly aware that they’re still both completely naked. “I love you, and I can’t even begin to say how relieved I am that you’re alive.”

Her statement has the memories of his friends slamming back into him, but before they can consume him, she leaning forward, tucking herself against his chest and sinking into the hug he returns. “And I swear, we’re gonna make the Brotherhood pay, together.”

His eyes flit to his sunglasses, left abandoned to his left, doesn’t feel the endless itch to hide his face, to conceal himself from the world. He doesn’t reach for them. Instead, he pulls her in closer, drops his head down to lean on hers, relieved to have her in his arms. Satisfied to know that she’s still in his corner, still his friend, his partner, and now something more.

“Together.”

It’s not a question. It’s a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what y'all thought. This is only my second fic with.... The Good Stuff TM (wink) so I'm sorry if it was completely awful. Other than that pathetic attempt, I'm proud of everything else and hope you guys like it enough to leave me a kudo or a comment.


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